Reginald Hill (aka: Patrick Ruell)

• A Clubbable Woman (1970)
  The debut of Dalziel and Pascoe. Well done in a rugby club setting, but not top rate like the later books -- still rather tentative in presenting the gross and outspoken superintendent.

• An Advancement of Learning (1971) ^
  Murder at a small university college (founder of the college found buried under her statue). Pascoe, still a young sergeant, meets up again with his old sweetheart Ellie Soper, whom he hadn't seen in ages. Some old-fashioned stuff about left-wing student protests (note, however, that this book introduces a character who becomes very important in much later books). Dalziel plays the major role in solving the case, but this story, even with its nice academic setting, has not reached the peaks later Hill books did. Dalziel, in particular, has not come into his true form yet and is rather out of his element here, even his accent only vaguely Yorkshire, and he is not as intimidating as he later becomes. (Epigraphs from Sir Francis Bacon.)

• Ruling Passion (1973)
  Off-duty Pascoe goes to a reunion of old friends and finds three of them gunned down in a country cottage. His old friend and future wife Ellie is with him. Very complicated and interesting plot about obsession.

• *An April Shroud (1975)
  Here is Dalziel at his most outrageous. On vacation in Lincolnshire, he gets caught in a flood, rescued by rowboat (during an aquatic funeral procession), and taken to a manor house full of dotty characters in the best tradition. They are setting up to open as one of those medieval-banquet places, and of course Andy decides to enlist as the major domo ('bring on the next remove') for the time being. And he gets romantically involved with the widow who runs the place. There is a nice country-house murder plot too.

• A Pinch of Snuff (1978)
  Murder in the porn-film industry, with Pascoe as the main investigator. They have apparently been making snuff films among others (where a person is actually killed on camera). This is not a pleasant book, although there are some very amusingly-written moments.

• **A Killing Kindness (1980) ^
  An early Pascoe/Dalziel; Hill is one of the best of the new 'Golden Age' mystery writers. This one sets it all up perfectly, if you are not yet ready for the later, more (psychologically) complex books that do tend to wear one down. Hope I'm not giving too much away by saying that there is a critical clue revealed in the very first sentence! Supt. Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) is a true original who has to be experienced rather than described. [For some reason, I link this book with Carr's Till Death Do Us Part; maybe it's just the similar settings, although that makes for an interesting contrast.] This was the first Hill I'd read that I really liked, so it gets high marks as a favorite (and has this old review from Mysterylist). The opening scene, with the dead girl's memories as she was drowning, with the pterodactyls flying overhead, is one of the most impressive openings in all detective fiction, truly haunting. As is the similar 'spook' ending. A masterpiece of his early career.

• Deadheads (1983)
  A nice bit of misdirection involving deaths in a corporate environment paving the way for the prime suspect (a rose aficionado and devoted gardener -- deadheading is to prune the rosebush to get rid of useless buds and encourage new growth) to rise to the top. Is he a murderer or a lucky opportunist? (As often happens with Hill, this character comes up again in later books as a rather important peripheral in the lives of the main protagonists.)

• *Exit Lines (1984) ^
  A very humorous book, with the premise based on the last words of dying persons who may or may not be victims of murder. (The chapter epigraphs are all famous last words, such as Oscar Wilde's "Either this wallpaper goes or I do" and George V's "Bugger Bognor.")

• Child's Play (1987)
  

• Underworld (1988)
  

• Bones and Silence (1990)
  

• *Recalled to Life (1992) ^
  Dalziel goes to America! (and appears on the front page of the New York Post under the headline "Crocodile Dalziel" -- cf. Dickson's H.M. in New York in Graveyard to Let). The case involves a country-house murder of the old-fashioned sort that occurred in 1963, the last year of the Golden Age before the hippie '60s -- Profumo, Kennedy, Philby, etc. This is pointed out in a BBC radio series by a true-crime writer, calling it the last golden age mystery, who was a child present at that event, the upshot being the convicted woman accomplice's finally being released from prison (the squire was hanged for the crime). There are still efforts to cover up the true story, or at least keep it muddied, being carried out at the highest levels -- British Intelligence and the CIA -- but Dalziel gets involved sub-rosa to defend the reputation of his old Supt. under whom he assisted at this investigation. Wonderfully complex plotting, though somewhat disappointing in the final analysis -- one expects a Golden Age surprise solution to a Golden Age mystery! The chapter epigraphs are from Tale of Two Cities and are apt, as usual, especially since the squire went to the gallows pulling a Sidney Carton act.

• **Pictures of Perfection (1994) ^
  For a change, although he has written some 'light' stuff before, this is a true English Village Cosy, where everything works out OK, weddings at the end, villains come-upped, and all's right with the world. (Hint: his chapter epigraphs are taken from Jane Austen.) As usual, though, he has a socio-political point, which is consistently pro-human-nature and anti-bureaucrat, government, big business, and other horrors of modern society. The name of his northern-English village of Enscombe is described in one of his wonderful Innes-type scholarly asides as being derived not from 'valley (combe) of the river Een' but 'the village that escaped the monstrous visitor' (old English entisc cuma); it is one of those amberized places that protects itself amidst chaotic events. Nice change, this book, from his habitual emphasis on really tragic or pathetic events.

• **The Wood Beyond (1996) ^
  Hill has shown fascination with the appalling screw-up of the First World War (as in his 'straight' novel No Man's Land, which unfortunately never got paperback publication in the US). Here, it turns out that Pascoe's great-grandfather was executed for cowardice by his own side at Ypres, but this is now only coming out because of P's grandmother's (the daughter's) recent death, and her odd request that her ashes be scattered all over the regimental museum. Pascoe starts digging and finds the really tragic story involved in his dysfunctional family's past. Oddly enough, this all ties in with the discovery of a skeleton at an animal research clinic, which was being invaded by some animal rights activists, who are headed by Dalziel's latest sex interest (who becomes the prime suspect in another murder). Very complicated plot -- Marilyn Stasio of NY Times described it as like the inexorable collision of a mass of icebergs -- with everything interweaving some of the most complex sub-plots ever conceived since Dickens and Collins. This is one of the most satisfactory, if confusing, and emotionally moving of all the books in this series. A true masterpiece. (Chapter epigraphs from Marvell's "The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Faun" -- how does Hill come up with these wonderful things?)

• **On Beulah Height (1998) ^
  Reminiscent in a good but dissimilar way to Arthur Upfield's excellent Australian Outback mystery Death of a Lake, this involves the drying up (by drought) of a reservoir that had displaced an entire village when it was built by the water board some dozen years earlier. There was an unsolved series of girl-child murders before the waters sunk the village (and the bureaucrats at the Water Board actually bulldozed all the buildings to prevent the new lake becoming a place for skin-diving archeologists). Supposedly, all those crimes were attributed to Mad Benny, who disappeared. Well, you know now that all the vile details will now come up again. Dalziel had been a younger policeman in the orginal unresolved investigation, and he has a vengeful memory like an elephant. There is one of Hill's suberb memoirs, in this case a police statement, in the words of one of the original child protagonists (Betsy Allgood -- even the name is wonderfully Dickensian) -- it is not realistic that somebody like this can be so articulate, even transcribed in dialect, but it WORKS, which is the main thing -- and the clues are buried in her testimony. Hill is able to voice the true thoughts of even the most lowly of his characters, because he grants them the benefit of high intelligence behind their ignorance of spelling, grammar, BBC dialect*, but respects that (maybe his big problem in his books is admitting that there are really some low-lives who are unable to think or express themselves at all beyond 'f--- you'). Brilliant book. Even fits most of the Golden Age of Detection rules.

  * [It doesn't take a reader long to catch on to Yorkshire dialect --- the nowts, lads, thees, anyroads, and buts (for however) -- or the supposedly incorrect ain'ts, he were, and the like -- these were all perfectly correct in the days of the Venerable Bede, it's just that it was King Alfred's Wessex dialect that eventually established itself as standard English]

• *Arms and the Woman (1999) ^
  Mostly about Ellie (Soper) Pascoe -- to be frank, she is a bitch, which many of the characters in Hill novels will agree with! But she does have some redeeming points, as is shown in this very nice book where she is the center of authorial attention. Hill has that very entertaining technique of moving the focus of attention around to different protagonists in his well-constructed world of repeating characters who grow and interact back through the whole series, assuming you read Hill as a series writer, not just for one-off blockbusters. Hill is not just a mystery writer: he has also done spy novels and thrillers. This book falls into the latter categories, as there is no detection to speak of. IRA and Colombian drug dealers and the "Funny Buggers" in British Intelligence. Plus women in danger and behaving like pure Greek Furies in dealing with the threats. That's great, as is the 'Sibyl', who is the sort of dea ex machina of this tale. Nice job, this story! An added bonus is Ellie's fantasy fiction about Odysseus and Aeneas, starring Dalziel, Pascoe, and Wield in thin disguises. She calls it her Comfort Blanket, something she does for amusement on her laptop while recovering from some very traumatic events that took place earlier in the series. Definitely not for publication, since she deletes it at the end (but of course Hill hacked it somehow and saved it for our delectation). Some people find this distracting from the story. Others may feel the same about the Sibylline interspersions. I don't at all. It really solidifies a plot that is rather absurd if it were just read on its own merits. Brings it up to the mythological and epic level where you can take absurdity for granted and just wallow in a ripping yarn without trying to question its reality.

  * [A very nice quotation showing Hill at his best erudition level, even superior to Michael Innes:
  

  "Rosemont was a house for all seasons, but at summer's height the extensive gardens were a green canvas on which an artist had painted heaven with a pallette of roses. From the purity of Iceberg and Virgo, through the faint flush of Felicité et Perpetué and Escapade to the clear pink of Dandy Dick, the lilac pink of Yesterday and the salmon pink of Evensong, the shades ran ever darkening down the red blush of Perfecta, the bright flame of Wilhelm, the dried blood of Kassel, the velvet burgundy of Roseraie de l'Hay, ending in the depths of midnight purple in the robes of Cardinal de Richelieu. A seeker after sensation could voyage long hours across this ocean of color and scent, uncaring because unknowing whether his fate was directing him to Sweet Repose and Penelope or Clytemnestra and Crimson Shower."

  Note the sinister implications of the last sentence in tying into the 'Greek' revenge theme of this book -- Hill doesn't throw stuff like this in just to impress people. (But impress he does.)]

  
  

• **Dialogues of the Dead (2001) ^
  This is a stunning book.Nobody knows if the short and crude letters to newspapers signed Jack the Ripper were really written by that maniac, but general consensus is that they were (as were Son of Sam's). In any case that has become a tried-and-true gambit to use in mystery novels. Here it is carried to extremes beyond belief. But that doesn't matter unless you want all your mysteries based on nits, grits, and grunting cop work. Hill has developed his own style, combining really earthy police procedural novel with airy intellectual gamesmanship. In his case it works very well (better than it did with Michael Innes, for example). The fact that taunting dialogues are not normally sent to the investigators except on a primitive level like Jack, Sam, and Zodiac, does not detract from this really intriguing story. The methodology of the mad serial killer falls into the classic ABC format of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, but practically no reader will ever suss out this gimmick. The identity of the murderer is easy enough to deduce from the plentiful clues (nicely spiced up with red-herring suspects who also fit the bill), but you will still be blown away by the epilogue, which ranks up with John Dickson Carr's The Burning Court as a stunning ending. I hope I'm not giving too much away, but that only applies to people who haven't yet read the book but intend to.
  Some reviewers knock the book (as they did the last one, Arms and the Women) for having irrelevant or distracting interpolations from the thoughts or writings of an undisclosed character, or else when the source is known, just unimportant padding. Not the case! Hill's books are getting longer and longer (aren't most mystery writers doing that these days?), but they are not padded out. EVERYTHING is relevant, which is why he is such a master. On the other hand, many readers just don't like the style of this sort of book. The low-life Dalziel stuff is great, and the bathroom wit. But a lot of people don't want to put up with dealing in quotations from obscure poets or the use of obscure words like paronomasia. OK don't read it then. But if you want to stretch your mind a little bit beyond normal reading, then definitely books like this one have to be on your list.
  Remember what a fuss was made about "Name of the Rose" many years ago? Reviewers fell over backwards saying how great it was, and the public bought that snobby attitude to the extent of making it a best-seller. But nobody had any idea what the author was talking about. What is semiotics? Nobody knows, so everybody is impressed. What is Paronomania? Not even dedicated Scrabble players know (probably I will get dumped on by fanatic Paranomaniacs on the Internet for saying this).* The point is that everything is perfectly clued in this mystery, and if you miss the solution, that makes it all the better, because that's what the genre is all about. Oh, and don't ever think that because Hill is 'academic' in his writing that nothing ever happens. There is blood and gore in plenty here. Also humor, and in some instances victims who well deserve their fate.

  * Actually, paronomasia is a very old word for wordplay, as in puns. Paronomania implies an obsession with that. But as for the Scrabble-type game, it is apparently an invention by Reginald Hill. Search the Internet and you will find no references to such a game, except those pointing back to the Reginald Hill book. No doubt somebody will invent the game sooner or later, but as described in the book it would be practically impossible to play. Note that the British edition subtitle was 'Paronomania', which given the tone of the book gives away the identity of the murderer!

• *Death's Jest Book (2002) ^
  Another long and complex read (and like many of his books, it helps to have read earlier ones, especially when characters who have been in them re-appear). But after a slow start and a really lagging middle, it builds up to a wonderful climax involving the heist of an ancient Roman treasure in the midst of a huge shopping mall of all places! It is hard to tell with Hill these days whether he is into parody or detection. One could say both....
  The story is basically a follow-up to Dialogues of the Dead, involving many of the same characters, alive and dead. The ending of Jest Book at least ALMOST rules out the possibility of this becoming a trilogy (thank God). However, the interleaved plots are brilliantly, if confusingly, worked out -- you never know where they will connect apart from being a shared milieu, yet it all ties up neatly. There are basically four of them -- (1) Pascoe and his nemesis Frannie Roote, (2) Wield and his relationship with a teenaged male prostitute, (3) the characters from Dialogues and the wrapping up of that crazy plot, including police cover-ups, a touching romance, and revenge motifs, and (4) Dalziel behaving like Odin or Zeus in the background, tying everything together. Its great length is partly due to the development of Hill's large cast of interlocking characters, their hang-ups, and their relationships -- something normally to be avoided in a detective novel -- but in this case one has grown to really 'like' the people (not necessarily personally like, but find very interesting), and as in a Victorian novel this takes a lot of verbiage to work properly. Maybe too much in the case of Frannie Roote, although his case is pretty subtle in that he might be a mass murderer or just unlucky (or lucky?) in the events that transpire wherever he's around.
  As usual, the writing is brilliant and effective, ranging from Dalzielisms such as "But it was difficult to do anything in this building without twanging one of the threads that ran straight to Shelob's lair" to "Dusk comes early even on the brightest December day and when the clouds sag low like dusty drapes over an abandoned bier, there's never much more light than you'll catch in the gloaming of a dead man's eyes." (Some people might find this too 'literary' or pretentious for a mystery novel, but I happen to like this kind of stuff.) A good piece of work, though maybe not to everybody's taste. Read some of the Amazon readers' reviews. The critical ones I disagree with, but they do make valid points.

• *Good Morning, Midnight (2004) ^
  Many readers of Reginald Hill thought he'd gone overboard in the obscure wordplay of his two previous books (with the added irritation of Frannie Root). There are reasons for people to object to them on the grounds that they were too complex and often made little sense. Well, perk up! Hill has gone back 'on track' in this latest. There are, as expected, some good Dalzielisms: "It would be hard to describe Andy Dalziel as a soothing presence, but like a shark dumped into a swimming pool, he provided a new and unignorable focus of attention." And regarding cell phones: "if he wanted something that whistled in his pocket, he'd fill it with twigs and buy a canary." What is especially good is a narrative technique Hill has been honing for several books, that is the Molly-Bloom-like monologue presented as a chapter set in italics, one per each major character, interspersed at strategic moments. These 'confessions' define the characters and at the same time untangle, or rather reweave, the knots of the complex plot. The book is overlong (600 or so pages), and nothing much seems to happen for a lot of it, leading one to think there is really no murder plot at all, just obfuscations from the central characters who all have double lives hidden in the background. But when Hill begins to tie it all together, you will find an excellent and effective plot involving themes such as Iran-Contra conspiracies and government spies ('funny buggers') and big business, various adulteries and other sexual exploits, long-lasting revenge motifs, some touching interpersonal relationships, nice developments in the interrelationships of the series characters -- plus an ingenious presentation of a locked-room murder of the classic sort that is actually shown to the reader in reverse. Why, one asks, would a detective-story writer present a solution first where the reason for it being done is the main mystery, not the other way around? And then it turns out there WAS a locked-room murder, but not the one you'd expect. Very clever.

Other Novels and Series

• Patrick Ruell -- A pseudonym RH used early in his career for his spy and other non-series thrillers. They are all quite entertaining, though not up to the level of the Dalziel/Pascoe books that benefit from having repeating characters. The best of them, really superb, is *Urn Burial (1975), which takes place at an archeological dig up near Hadrian's Wall. Other titles (not all) are Castle of the Demon, Red Christmas, The Long Kill, Death Takes the Low Road, and Death of a Dormouse.
• Joe Sixsmith -- an amusing series based on a black PI who lives in Luton (one of those horrible 'new towns'); light-weight but fun, especially the formidable Auntie Mirabelle and Joe's alcoholic cat. Some titles: Killing the Lawyers, Born Guilty, Blood Sympathy, and Singing the Sadness.
• Short Story Collections: There Are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union. Pascoe's Ghost. One Small Step ('science fiction' novella -- Dalziel on the moon).
• Other -- (why as Hill and not as Ruell? don't know). The Spy's Wife, A Very Good Hater, A Fairly Dangerous Thing, *Fell of Dark, Traitor's Blood, *No Man's Land, *Who Guards the Prince?, and Another Death in Venice. Some comic, some suspenseful, some psychological, some involving espionage.